Arsenal were involved in a 0-0 draw with Chelsea that hurt the chances of being top of the table on Christmas. Liverpool winning on Saturday meant that Brendan Rodgers’ men were top of the table on Christmas.
The match between Arsenal and Chelsea was a disappointment for the home team since they could not impose themselves on the match despite being the home advantage. Chelsea tried playing on the counter-attack and there were quite efficient with it. Frank Lampard came the closest to opening the scoring with an effort that hit the bar.
Mikel Arteta was disappointed with the tactics adopted by Chelsea, as he said that Jose Mourinho’s team came with the ambition to get a point. This is not the first time Chelsea have adopted defensive tactics against one of their main title rivals. There are involved in a 0-0 draw against Manchester United earlier in the season. Despite criticising the defensive tactics of Chelsea, Arteta have been disappointed with their own failure to create chances. It was not until the 85th minute that Arsenal had a shot on target.
However, they could have nicked three points from the match since they had the better of the opportunities in the last few minutes. The draw leaves Arsenal in the second place.
“You could see that Chelsea only wanted to defend and we wanted to win the game. I haven’t seen the challenge from John Obi Mikel again but my ankle is swollen big time. He broke my shin-pad and he was late. The referee had to make the decision and he decided it wasn’t a red card. Theo Walcott is saying that it was also 100 per cent a penalty. We were unlucky,” said Arteta.
A clean sheet was welcome for Arsenal since there were coming on the back of a 6-3 defeat against City.